Streaming Tight Ends: Week 7 Targets

A proud alumna of the UGA Grady College of Journalism, Jennifer Eakins has been working in the sports industry for well over a decade. She has had stints with CNN Sports, the Atlanta Hawks and the Colorado Rockies. Her first fantasy football draft took place in 1996 where she selected Ricky Watters with the first overall pick, and she has been a fantasy degenerate ever since.

It’s lucky Week 7, or something like that. Now’s the perfect time to evaluate your roster choices and gauge if the tight end you drafted is worthy of starting or if you need to hit the waiver wire in search of a better option. If you purposely approached drafting the tight end position with the intention of streaming weekly, I’ve got you covered there, too. As a strategy, streaming aims to find players with above-average matchups, which can hopefully translate to TE1 production for your fantasy squad.

For streaming purposes, 4for4’s Schedule-Adjusted Fantasy Points Allowed (aFPA) is a metric we rely heavily on to determine weekly matchup strength. As the season continues to progress and more data is available, aFPA becomes more and more reliable, using rolling 10-week data. Targets and efficiency metrics are also considered when choosing weekly streamers.

4for4 rankings also come into play here and should always be considered when making league-specific roster decisions.

The goal is to roster a player who will return TE1 fantasy points. Week 6 was another rough one. C.J. Uzomah put up 11.4 PPR points as TE13, with Cameron Brate the next best performer with 8.5 fantasy points. The optimal TE streamer has 80.7 PPR fantasy points—good enough for TE7 on the season thus far. On to Week 7, and the players who can fill in on a bye week, bail you out of a bad draft choice or simply provide the weekly streaming points you crave.

In order to provide advice that you can actually implement, candidates for tight end streaming consideration must be owned in no more than 40 percent of Yahoo fantasy leagues.

Top Streaming Picks

Uzomah is TE10 in PPR points since taking over for Tyler Eifert in Week 5, posting 17.7 fantasy points in those two contests. The fourth-year TE was tied for third on the Bengal’s offense in targets last week with seven, showing he’s become a key member of their pass-catching group. With Eifert out for the year, and Tyler Kroft dealing with a foot injury, Uzomah should continue to produce as the season progresses and Week 7 presents another solid chance for success.

Cincinnati heads to Kansas City, to battle a Chiefs defense currently ranked 31st in TE aFPA, surrendering 16.9 schedule-adjusted PPR points to the position weekly. Rostered in 33 percent of Yahoo leagues, Uzomah’s time as stream-eligible may be dwindling, so grab him now and hang on through Week 8, where he gets the worst-ranked team in TE aFPA, the Bucs.

After a brutal Week 5, RSJ rebounded with five catches for 69 yards against the Vikings on Sunday, translating to 11.9 PPR points. Rookie Josh Rosen has this Cardinals’ offense moving the chains more efficiently than his predecessor Sam Bradford, and RSJ is currently the fourth-most targeted player on Arizona’s offense.

Denver comes to town in Week 7, a defensive unit that allowed Travis Kelce to post 20.8 PPR points in Week 4 and is ranked 18th in aFPA to TEs they’ve faced this season. RSJ is rostered in 21 percent of Yahoo leagues, so there’s a decent chance he’s there for the taking. As an added bonus, like Uzomah above, RSJ’s Week 8 opponent, the 49ers, is also soft versus TEs and rank 30th in aFPA to the position.